What is the key to a successful styled wedding shoot? It’s all about good collaboration.
Yes you need to have a beautiful theme.
And of course you need a water tight plan.
But most of all, you need a fantastic team of suppliers who are totally on board with the collaboration.
You need people who get your vision and are passionate about producing an amazing result. It’s usually best to collaborate with wedding industry suppliers and creatives who have a similar style and/or ideal client to your brand.
When every collaborator brings their A-game styled shoot magic happens.
But we also know the prospect of collaboration is often what people find overwhelming when planning their fist shoot.
You want to pull a great team together. And you don’t want to let anyone down.
After all, in most cases people in the wedding industry collaborate for free. Supplying their time, skills and products in exchange for professional images and publication credit.
Recently we interviewed Wedding Academy student, Wedding Planner & Designer Carlie Northwood of Dreams into Plans Weddings and Events about her experience of planning her first shoot and collaborating with a fellow student.
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We love that your love of Italy inspired this design. What do you love about designing a wedding or shoot? And what’s your top tip for bringing your vision to life?
I love getting creative and implementing personal and individual touches to a design.
I think it’s important to dedicate the same attention to detail throughout and not overlook the smaller things – finding little unique details to tie in different elements of a theme is a clever trick!
You collaborated with fellow Wedding Academy member Kelly Howard from All Things Pretty Weddings. How did you connect and decide to work together?
We met through the academy! We discovered that we are based quite local to each other from the very first webinar I attended and we swapped numbers straight away. We’re both at similar stages of our business journey and quickly became part of each other’s support network.
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You worked as Planner and Designer and Kelly as the Stylist. This can be a great collaboration for both parties, playing to each of your strengths. What did you find most beneficial about teaming up?
It was quite a natural step for us to collaborate together as we seem to share the same taste in most trends! This really helped with creating a cohesive design and staying on topic.
Your shoot was published on beautiful UK wedding blog B.LOVED. What are your tips for getting published on a top blog?
Research is key – it’s important to consider the type, style and feel of the blog’s content and always have that in mind during the design stage and when selecting vendors such as the photographer.
Look at the blog’s submission requirements before the shoot to ensure the correct imagery is captured and their criteria is met.
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Finally, what did you love most about working on this styled shoot and how did collaboration influence your success?
I loved the whole process and I’m so pleased with the results. I gained some invaluable experience working with so many talented suppliers and working with Kelly really helped boost my confidence!
The networking side of things was a great way to meet other suppliers and introduce myself to the local wedding community.
Well we think the shoot is stunning and you should be so proud! Thanks so much for sharing your experience with us Carlie!
